Solved

Season Start Designs

Hi James, I looked into this and the teams in question have achieved the best possible starting designs in Elite. This looks correct, but yours on the other hand should be at the same level, if as you say you had a level 20 designer all season.

I noticed that there was one day (I think it was Jan 6 when I looked) that you lost your designer then re-signed them to the team. Perhaps that has something to do with it, but the evidence is scarce on this. I can't trace next season design history very clearly. The best I can do is ask you to watch out for it in future and see if you can give any more details. There's nothing in the system that looks unusual or which indicates a clear cause.

I think that is actually the secret. It's misleading, but RIDON Racing may have carried an in-progress 'next season design' from another league and then continued to develop it throughout your season. This, in theory, could achieve the perfect design of 50 in all areas, while others only reached 43.

What about these other teams who have reached 50 in some areas.. Is that just the strength of their CD?

EDIT / UPDATE: My theory seems correct. There is no code to "wipe" the next season design as there is with the current season design when switching leagues. This means he was continuing an already developed next season design when joining the league, rather than starting 1 race behind.